


Ruined

by shakespearespaz



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steely eyes met his. He’d always considered blue eyes beautiful, but now he saw nothing but the sharpness of the cold, hard north.</p>
<p>“I survive.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruined

“Lady Catelyn—” Tywin began, his eyes falling on her but his glance focusing somewhere beyond her tense figure.

“Lady Stark.”

Her correction surprised him.

“Forgive my boldness,” he replied insincerely, “but you haven’t been Lady Stark for a while. Perhaps you are still a Lady Tully, but I doubt you shall be even that much longer.”

She took a step closer, defensive.

“I may have had my share of misfortune, ser, but do not mistake me for ruined. I am a Tully and a Stark and you do not have to leave to call me Catelyn.”

“Fight it if you must, but do not doubt for a moment that you or your houses are indeed ruined.”

Steely eyes met his. He’d always considered blue eyes beautiful, but now he saw nothing but the sharpness of the cold, hard north.

“I survive.”

Tywin wanted to laugh; to truly play this game they played, he should have laughed. Instead, a small ache in the pit of his stomach kept him sober.

“You don’t survive, Lady Catelyn, you endure. You try to tell me that you are not ruined, that you are still whole—still whole enough to be Lady Catelyn Tully Stark. But you aren’t.”

He began walking towards her; he would not back down. He had come to see if she would.

“Perhaps you cracked on that sunny day a sword deftly separated your husband’s head from his body. Or was it when that raven from Winterfell came to tell you that two more innocents had been brutally murdered? Or did you cling together until your last living son was shot full of traitorous arrows?” 

The blood had gone from Catelyn’s face, but she refused to take her eyes off of him. Each difficult breath kept her from either sobbing or attempting to rip his throat out. 

“Whichever day it was, on that day a tear ripped through you and everything that you were before ceased to be. Your life shattered and left you hollow and gasping for air.”

“Stop,” she hissed, “You don’t know—”

“Don’t I? You carry on each day, hoping that you might find a fraction of the life you had. Save that, you might find one moment, one day, when everything will stop hurting for a mere second of peace. Because you know yourself, and you know that you’ll survive—however much you may want to die. But just because you survive, does not mean you are not ruined.”

He expected a pause, for his words to weigh on her, incite her further. Catelyn would not give him the satisfaction.

“Perhaps, Lord Tywin, if you were to turn such insight unto yourself, you would discover exactly _what you are_ ,” she spit out harshly.

Tywin didn’t even blink.

“I know exactly what I am. And I know exactly how terrible it is.”


End file.
